I first met Bob Finestone, who has died of heart failure aged 60, loping around Cambridge University in a large shaggy Afghan coat in 1972. He had a huge chest and a big head with long, tightly curled hair. His manner was shy but his smile was swift and warm.

Bob was in the year above me in the social and political science course. His apparently casual approach to life hid a rigorous mind – he was constantly probing me for views on the Frankfurt School and Herbert Marcuse which I was ill-equipped to give.

He was born and schooled in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire. He graduated from Cambridge University with a first-class degree and went straight to London to teach. His commitment to an alternative way of life to capitalism was deeply felt and constant throughout his life.

He moved from London to live in a series of alternative communities in Scotland. Shortly after the death of his parents, he travelled to Bolivia in the mid-1980s, initially teaching English at a community co-operative in La Paz.

He stayed in La Paz, marrying Angelica, who was working as a knitter, and made a life with her and her children, Hector and Nelson. Bob and Angelica also had a son together, Juan Gershorn. Bob lived with his family in El Alto, in a small house which he built himself. He taught English and Spanish at the SpeakEasy institute, and wrote a trilogy on life in Bolivia which was published online.

Since the 1980s we have been bombarded with the need for material success in life. Bob was resolute in turning his back on the privileges of his early life in order to recognise his deep commitment to the equal worth of all of us.

The last years of his life were very difficult. Angelica died in 2007 and Bob found that he was suffering from a cerebral parasitic infection, which meant that he became severely disabled and unable to speak. Friends in Bolivia and Britain did what they could to make his life more comfortable. He is survived by his children.